Vaguely irritated, Shayne followed her to the door. It was locked. He rang the bell, long and hard. Finally he heard footsteps from within the house, slow and ponderous. A bolt clicked and the door swung open.
Kara stiffened and cried out, her voice shrill and accusing. As Shayne took a quick step toward her she pointed without hesitation at the figure in the doorway.
“He... he marked the bullet that killed my husband!”
Shayne saw a tall, florid, handsome man, possibly in his late sixties, but with the carriage of an athlete. He had bristling white hair, a black mustache, and his mournful brown eyes were extraordinarily alert.
“Sure, sure,” he said in an Italian accent, “I marked the bullet all right.” He appeared visibly shaken. “The death of this lady’s husband was a terrible thing.”
Shayne said, “I’m Michael Shayne, private investigator.”
“And I am General Zamboni. Come in if you like, please,” he led them through the store into a back living room. An array of rifles stood in double rows in a wide, glass-doored cabinet by a narrow, ascending stairway at the far end, and on the mantlepiece, in an ornate gilt frame, stood a faded photograph of a strikingly beautiful woman, a theatrically coquettish smile on her lips. Something about the eyes seemed dimly familiar to Shayne.
He said sharply to Zamboni, “You say you marked the bullet that killed Voltane. Exactly what kind of a mark did you make?”
“My initial,” Zamboni said. “The letter ‘Z’.”
“Why didn’t you report that fact to the police immediately?”
Zamboni looked at him forlornly. “Is it really important?”
“You ought to know it’s important! Your failure to report it could get you into trouble. It’s even worse to run away from the scene of a crime, when you’re in any way involved.”
“I will report it,” said Zamboni wearily.
Shayne lit a cigarette with slow deliberation. Suddenly he asked Kara, “How long have you two known each other?”
Kara was sitting grimly on a hard, straight backed chair, “I never saw this man in my life before last night. That was when I went into the audience and he marked the bullet.”
“She is speaking the truth,” said Zamboni.
Shayne eyed him coldly. “Did you know Voltane?”
“No, I did not know him either.”
Shayne tugged at his left earlobe, then remarked casually. “I’m curious about your arsenal, general.”
“Shooting was my business,” Zamboni said. “Forty years ago I headlined every vaudeville theater in the world. They called me an even greater shot than Annie Oakley! I still am. Every day I go out on my beach and practice.” He started to get up, his eyes flashing. “Come, I show you—”
“I believe you,” Shayne said. “There’s no need for a demonstration.” He arose a little wearily. “Better report that bullet marking to the police. I may want to question you again, but you needn’t let it worry you.”
Five minutes later he was driving back to Miami with Kara at his side.
Kara slept peacefully all the way home.
VI
Police headquarters was a three minute drive from Kara’s residence hotel, where Shayne deposited her. He found Chief Gentry at his desk, thumbing through a large volume of MAGICIANS’ SECRETS by Fred Keating, his face ludicrously distorted in puzzlement. Similar tomes were stacked by his side, and Lucy Hamilton’s type account of last night’s tragedy was spread before him — four neatly prepared sheets.
“Where the devil is Kara?” demanded Gentry as the detective entered, slamming the book shut. “I just left Vogle, and if I meet another such uncooperative headshrinker I may be forced to have myself committed. I’ll be raving and—”
“Easy, Will,” soothed Shayne, sprawling his rangy frame into a chair. “She’s all yours.” He tossed Gentry the slip of paper on which he had noted Kara’s new address. “I helped her move.”
The detective chief cocked a dubious eye. “And?”
“She’s convinced her husband was murdered. But in spite of her occult claims she hasn’t the least idea why or by whom, or even how he did the bullet trick.” He lit a cigarette. “What gave with Willie Kling?”
Gentry bristled. “Enough to bet your badge that he and Burton Adams — wherever he’s hiding — are in on it together.”
“Also,” said the redhead, “that he’s the ugly son who conked me and stole whatever was stolen from Voltane’s trunk. What was ballistic’s report on the slug I took from his mouth?”
“Nothing. It wasn’t marked, it hadn’t been fired. Just dug out of the shell.”
“It begins to look as if he was killed by the wrong bullet,” Shayne said wryly, reaching for the phone. “Mind if I call my office?”
Gentry nodded helplessly as the redhead dialed. Lucy Hamilton answered on the second ring. “Angel, it’s me,” he said. “Any calls?”
The redhead held the receiver tight against his ear, heard his secretary’s voice saying, “...Tim Rourke, three times, about Voltane. Something about a big fight he had years ago with somebody called ‘Zamboni’—”
Shayne hung up. Gentry’s eyes followed him dismally as he strode from the office.
Shayne needed no occult guidance to locate Timothy Rourke. The emaciated reporter was in the usual booth at the usual bar around the corner from the Daily News building, ogling an almost empty highball. He looked up owlishly over his glasses as the redhead joined him.
“Our bullet-catching friend,” he said by way of greeting, “seems to have been something of a ladies’ man, even as you and I. Are you buying?”
Shayne snapped his fingers at the bartender. He ordered a bourbon for Tim, a brandy for himself. “Go on,” he said.
Tim glanced at his notes. “It also seems he got into one helluva jam over a former strip-tease artist when he was working the Ottowa State Fair years ago. She was the wife of another performer also playing the fair — a sharpshooter who called himself ‘General Zamboni,’ and the mother of his baby son. When he found out what was going on between her and Voltane he really sharp-shooted. But he was so blind with rage the bullet only nicked his ear. There was a terrible stink about it at the time. Then everything suddenly blew over, and a few months later La Belle Zamboni died following an abortion.”
“Forget the drinks,” said Shayne, catching the bartender’s eye and tossing a self-explanatory dollar bill on the table. “Come on — we’ll go in my car. This is your story, Tim, and you can write it to suit yourself. But if you break as much as one word of it before I give you the green light—!”
Tim followed, his slaty eyes glinting with anticipation.
It was almost as if Zamboni had been expecting him. He was standing in the half open doorway of his beach house when Shayne and Tim pulled up.
“Good afternoon Mr. Shayne. I got in touch with the police as you advised and—”
“That can wait,” Shayne said, gesturing toward the reporter. “This is Timothy Rourke, a friend of mine.”
Zamboni acknowledged the introduction with mournful eyes, hesitated, and then led them back into the living room. Tim sank into a chair, and Shayne strode to the mantlepiece and studied the face of the smiling lady in the gilt frame. The general was standing directly behind him.
“My wife,” he said sadly. “She was very beautiful.”
“Very,” agreed the redhead. “When did she die, general?”
“Nineteen hundred and thirty-five.”
Shayne could see the reflection of Zamboni’s face over his own shoulder in the oval mirror above the portrait. “That would make Burton Adams about twenty three now, wouldn’t it? He has his mother’s eyes, too.”